The reason diets don’t work, and it’s not why you think.

I’m sick off online and offline products, telling us we can lose weight, get six pack abs, tone up etc etc, if we follow their nutrition, or workout plan. If it was that simple, wouldn’t we all be running around perfect, with perfect lives, super skinny, fit, toned?

I bet if I asked you to write a healthy nutrition plan, you could do it. And I bet you If I asked you to design me a workout, you could do it too! There’s thousand of free workouts and nutrition plans on google and Youtube, all you have to do is pick up your phone, and follow.

So why are more women than ever, gaining weight? Ireland is on track to become the most obese country in Europe. What? That means US? Little old us, who remember a time, when treats and sweets and all that craic, were not in abundance? WOW, we have a problem.

The more women I meet at consultations, the more I realise that there’s too many bad messages out there.

Everyone seems to be taking the angle of dieting, and 6 weeks programs, that promise you’ll never have a weight problem again… Who’s getting down to the ROOT of the problem? Enough with the band aids, that’s all they are, band aids, that COVER the problem!

Weight watchers, Slimming world, Unislim, you get in into your head that in order to stop the scales from creeping up, you need to count out your food. Obsess, watch, check it daily. That’s it.

So many women I meet, feel like they are FAILURES. They’ve tried everything. The weight has crept back on. They’ve yo-yo’ed. They lost it all and it all went back on, and more. They’re now scared of their future health, scared of being really overweight.

No one wants to be overweight. No one. Even people that pretend they don’t mind, no one wants to be unhealthy.

Why would you want to be unhealthy???

Relying on dieting, as a way of controlling your weight, is soul destroying. It’s depressing and an awful way to live. It doesn’t make you feel good, it doesn’t release feel good hormones.

It doesn’t make your skin glow, your hair shine. It doesn’t make you feel more capable. It doesn’t make you feel stronger, it doesn’t improve your mental health. It doesn’t make you a better friend or mum, or co-worker.

OH.. hang on….. Something else does though….

Oh that’s right…. EXERCISE!!! and what else? Working on YOU. Working on your mindset, improving your life, through improving how you think, and look at things. THAT’S the key to success.

Working on your mindset and working out, are the two top things you can do, to start to get on the right path, towards lifelong change.

So first of all, you need to start working on your mindset. I highly recommend ‘The Miracle Morning’ by Hal Elrod and practice the 6 LIFE SAVERS, in his book, for 30 minutes every morning. It only requires you to get out of bed, a half hour earlier than normal, but you can do the whole thing in your pyjamas, which is great, it cuts out the barrier of having to be somewhere.

If you practice the miracle morning for 10-30 days, it’s going to make you think. FACT. And thinking, in a different way, being provoked to challenge yourself, brings about improvements. So that’s where you start.

And the 5 minutes of exercise in the book, may lead to you increasing that time to 20 minutes. So the whole time you’re following the Miracle Morning, it may empower you to start living a better life.

Exercising. Not going to the gym and beating yourself up every day, because you’ve not motivation to go (you’re insane if you do have motivation to go to gyms, again SOUL DESTROYING, THEY TAKE THE VERY LIFE OUT OF THE WORD EXERCISE, WHERE’S THE FUN???), but fun exercise, whatever that is to you.

Get a trainer, walk, hill walk, you will start to feel motivated to do stuff.. you WILL.

Life is to be enjoyed. Food is a very important part of our lives, and should be a pleasure to eat. When you work on yourself, you’ll start to become more mindful of food, you just will, it’ll happen.

You’ll start to work on getting your Monday-Friday right, and you’ll actually be able to enjoy, guilt-free weekends. You need to re-think your relationship with food, exercise and yourself. Growth starts from within. Don’t spend the rest of your life battling with food.

Grow and improve yourself, and you’ll improve EVERY area of your life. It’ll happen . Fighting with exercise and food on a daily basis, is SOUL DESTROYING. Give that up. Focus on change from within. And focus on permanent, lifelong change, tools that you can develop and draw from, when you go through rough periods in your life.